Helping Students See the World: How FundScrip and EF Educational Tours Are Making Travel More Accessible
For students, travelling abroad isn’t just a vacation. It’s an opportunity to encounter different languages and cultures, visit historic sites, try unfamiliar foods, navigate new surroundings, and experience places they may have previously only encountered in textbooks or on a screen. Getting there, however, takes more than packing a suitcase. It takes planning and fundraising.
That’s why using FundScrip offers students a way to work toward their educational travel goals. Gift card fundraising can turn everyday purchases made by family and friends into contributions toward an EF Educational Tours trip.
What Is EF Educational Tours?
EF Educational Tours is a learning-focused travel organization that creates and operates international travel experiences specifically for students and educators. Since 1965, EF has worked with schools, teachers, parents, and communities to help students learn through travel and experience the world beyond the classroom. EF manages the many details that make a student tour possible, working with educators from the early planning stages through the students' return home.
EF helps coordinate the practical elements of the journey, including flights, accommodations, meals, transportation, activities, and other tour logistics. This allows educators to focus more on their students and the educational experience rather than having to coordinate every aspect of an international trip themselves.
EF's global network includes educators, Tour Directors, and team members across 115 countries, providing the infrastructure to support student travel around the world.
Bringing Educational Travel Within Reach
EF Educational Tours has long recognized that the cost of an educational tour can be a challenge for some families. Its fundraising resources are designed to give fundraising group administrators and students practical ways to help make educational travel more accessible.
EF Educational Tours lists FundScrip as one of its fundraising tools for students. That matters because there’s no single formula for a successful school trip fundraiser. FundScrip is the perfect complement to a range of fundraising activities recommended by EF.
A Real Student Journey to Italy
The potential of combining different fundraising approaches can be seen in a recent story shared by EF Educational Tours.
Brent McGimpsey, an EF Group Leader from British Columbia, wanted to bring his students to Italy in spring 2026. His group embraced a variety of fundraising opportunities, including restaurant takeovers, silent auctions, 50/50 draws, grocery bagging, Rotary Duck Race ticket sales, bottle depot returns, and FundScrip. Over a year and a half, the group raised nearly $30,000.
Their experience shows how a collection of fundraising efforts can help turn an ambitious travel goal into something students can actually experience.
Two Programs, One Efficient Strategy
Whether you're a student preparing for a trip, or a parent, teacher, or fundraising group administrator helping students reach their travel goals, consider combining FundScrip and EF Educational Tours into one strategy to take learning to the next level.